The bag lady looked out from the dumpster which had been her overnight accommodation. It was cloudy, and still cold from the night, with no sun to burn away the chill of the morning. She shivered, and climbed stiffly down on to the cobbles of the alley, clutched her bag tightly, and slowly moved towards the street.

The city hadn’t woken properly yet, and she almost had the sidewalk to herself. She stopped and peered in a café window, pretending that she was  sitting down to the hot mugs of coffee steaming on the tables. A man was reading a newspaper, and she could read over his shoulder the story of an overnight house fire. A single mother and her son had been left with nothing. She shook her head sadly, and shuffled on.

A little way down the street she turned into a small church, nestled amongst the taller buildings. In the foyer she rummaged in her bag, and found the one dime she knew was there, the only money left from yesterday’s begging. People didn’t have much time or charity for bag ladies.

Pushing the dime in the slot of the wooden box, she took a candle from the pile and approached the altar. As she lit her candle from the large candle in the middle of the altar, a plume of orange smoke slowly wafted towards the church ceiling. She sent her thoughts towards the ceiling with the smoke, and placed her candle with the others.

In the suburbs, a young woman sits beside the ashes that, until yesterday, had been her home. She wears clothes lent by neighbors, as there had been no time to save anything from the greedy fire’s flames. Her small son sleeps a few feet away, in a plastic chair and wrapped in a borrowed blanket. She sobs quietly at her loss.

An orange butterfly appears from nowhere, and hovers right in front of her, slowly fluttering its pretty wings. Transfixed, she watches as it flitters over to her son, and lands on his beautiful black curls. It sits there for a time, seeming to look straight at her. She suddenly realizes that all she had lost were her material possessions, and she still has the things that mattered above all. She smiles as the butterfly slowly flutters away.

The bag lady shuffled out of the church and onto West Broadway. She bent down and retrieved a fifty-dollar note from a puddle on the sidewalk, and looked around. There was no-one in sight. People were so careless with their money!

She smiled as she thought of a hot cup of coffee and a sit-down meal, and smiled even brighter as the sun came out and beamed down at her. It was a magic day.